Many different varieties of flexible dolls and action figures have been developed over the years, mainly for the purposes of entertainment and display. Creation of a flexible or posable figure generally requires creation of a movable articulated body and limbs, ideally configured to retain whatever pose the figure is placed into. Furthermore, it is often desirable that the figure be posable a large number of times without failure of the structure.
One class of posable figures includes an inner armature or skeleton, possibly including joints to recreate the articulation of a human skeleton, and a molded outer covering or body constructed of a flexible material that surrounds and is bonded or otherwise anchored to the inner skeleton. Examples of such toys are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 280,986, 1,189,585, 1,551,250, 1,590,898, 2,017,023, 2,073,723, 2,109,422, 2,392,024, 2,601,740, 2,684,503, 3,277,601, 3,325,939, 3,284,947, 3,395,484, 3,624,691, 3,682,282, 3,716,942, 3,955,309, 4,123,872, 4,136,484, 4,233,775, 4,470,784, 4,932,919, 4,954,118, 4,964,836, 5,017,173, 5,516,314, 5,630,745, 5,762,531, 5,800,242, 5,800,243, 5,989,658, 6,074,270, 6,155,904, and 6,217,406, and in publications GB 2354181, JP49-18954, JP49-18955, JP49-18956, JP 51-68772, JP60-97067, JP61-94090, JP61-94091, JP61-94092, JP 61-200581, JP62-53686, JP62-164092, JP63-103685, J11-212369, WO0067869, WO0010665, and WO0108776. The disclosures of all of these patents and publications are incorporated herein by reference.
Flexible doll toys and action figure toys, such as those described above, can be produced by first injection-molding fairly rigid skeletal parts, or “inserts,” in a first mold. These structural inserts, which may include a plurality of externally protruding locating pins, sprues and the like, are then positioned in a second mold and held in a proper position while a fairly soft, flexible material (such as polyvinyl chloride or the like) is forced into the second mold to encase the insert, resulting in a doll limb or torso. The resiliency of the exterior material may allow the doll limbs to bend in a limited range of flexible movement, simulating the movement of human limbs.
Known prior art inserts occupy only a relatively small fraction of the volume of the surrounding limb. For example, in U.S Pat. No. 3,682,282, a low-volume insert often includes an elongate, substantially flat segment reinforced with one or more thin ridges protruding orthogonally from the flat segment, such that a low-volume insert has a substantially X- or T-shaped cross-section. Inserts generally taper to a smaller cross-section towards one or both ends, and may be attachable to another insert to form a joint or limb, or to form the skeleton of a toy figure.